How to get the most out of your mobile marketing

Angela Munroe shares six tips on how small businesses can look their best on a smartphone

by Angela Munroe

Updated: Sep 29, 2017 Published: May 15, 2015

Approximately 80% of us have smartphones and it’s difficult to imagine how we’d stay connected or do our jobs without them. For more than half of us, they’re our first choice for searching the internet and many of us use them to access emails too**.

Your customers are using their smartphones to engage with your business, so the things you say, the way you say them and how you present yourself must fit the mobile screen. Here are my tips for making sure your mobile marketing is working hard for your business.

1. Remember smartphones are personal

Different media play different roles in our lives, and there’s arguably something very personal about a smartphone. We keep them close to us at all times. Small businesses are personal, so make the most of this advantage over the big boys, but remember that too many emails and/or texts can feel intrusive.

2. Understand the consumer context

We use different devices when we’re in different moods and at different stages of the purchase decision. Understanding your customers’ mindsets will lead to better conversations. For example, they might conduct research on a smartphone, but they’re more likely to buy from a desktop computer**. What information can you send to their smartphone, or highlight on your mobile-friendly website, to help nudge them along their customer journey towards a sale?

3. Be mobile friendly

Make sure your emails display properly on mobile devices. Sounds obvious, but according to the latest census of the email marketing industry†, only 14% of brands produce mobile-optimised marketing emails. Keep things simple with streamlined text and quick-to-load imagery. Be ruthless and remove any element of an email that acts as a barrier to your message or makes you look unprofessional by not loading or working properly.

Your website needs to be easy to use on a smartphone too. 57% of us won’t recommend a business with a poor mobile site and 40% have turned to a competitor site after a bad mobile experience. And Google’s recent announcement that your company’s search ranking will be improved if your site is mobile-optimised is adding a whole new level of importance to this.

There are several different ways to do this, but having a clear, concise elevator pitch is at the heart of all of them. Well considered messaging helps the end-user to find what they want quickly, and helps search engines provide relevant results. The design of your site should, above all, make information easy to access and navigate. There are technical considerations about how the information responds to different screens and platforms, so take advice on which implementation technique is likely to work best for you. But even the most robust and flexible website platform can’t help poorly shaped and structured business messaging.

4. Be relevant

People who access information on their smartphones usually want facts. If you run a restaurant, they probably want to know to know where you are, when you are open, menus, and a way to contact you to book a table or check availability. Put yourself in their shoes. Are these things easy to access? If the information is not immediate, is it easy to find? Even if you pride yourself on your award-winning chefs and the laid-back atmosphere, is that information important to someone on their phone in the local area?

When it comes to emails, mobile readers are ruthless – they scan and delete nearly half their inbox and only 23% of messages get read in full there and then. Use bold headlines and engaging pre-headers (the line of text that follows the subject line when an email is in preview on a mobile device) to capture their attention and leave them wanting more.

5. Be creative

Think creatively about how to promote your business on mobile devices. Ensure that your data is set up so that it’s easy for you to group customers and potential customers in different ways, allowing you to target the right messages, to the right people, at the right time. There’s also a range of off-the-shelf location-based mobile marketing options that can help you to target potential customers in your area and build awareness faster.

6. Use insight to shape your strategy

Gather and analyse data from your website to understand what devices people are using and what information they are looking for. Apply this learning to your mobile communication. If you’re a venue-based business, consider offering free WiFi in exchange for contact details which can help you improve your customer conversations.

Do you have any examples of how mobile marketing has helped your business? I’d love to hear your experiences and share them with other small businesses. Please tweet me at @AngelaDMunroe.